Okay, I think we need a new game plan.

It all started late Wednesday night. Yes, the night of the Goo Goo Dolls show. Within seconds of us walking through the front door (quietly, I might add), someone started crying upstairs. I whispered, "Are you kidding me?" As most of you know, my children do not sleep through the night. When I see posts on message boards from sleep deprived parents of newborn multiples asking when they can expect their babies to sleep through the night, I want to respond with one word. NEVER.

(My dear sweet baby chick, Emily, is the worst offender, by the way.)

So the crying on this particular evening was coming from Anna. Because I had literally just walked through the door, Grammy ran upstairs to check on her. Luckily, the drama was short lived. Grammy informed us that Anna had done the same thing about an hour earlier. It appeared to be just a bad dream as she really was crying in her sleep. At one point, she cried out, "No, Allie. Don't" (Okay, what does that tell you.)

Anna cried out again shortly after midnight. Again, it was in her sleep and we didn't need to intervene.

Thursday night when I arrived home from work, I noticed right away that Anna had the look. There was something with her eyes that seemed off. She was acting tired but really had no reason to be exhausted. I made a mental note to keep a close eye on her because one of three things was happening:

1. She was getting sick.
2. A UTI was developing.
3. Her shunt was malfunctioning.

Grammy called me at work late Friday morning to inform me that Anna's urine had been cloudy all day, she was complaining about her tummy area hurting and she felt warm. Rich and I raced to call the pediatrician as we both immediately suspected that she had a UTI. Her pediatrician was on vacation so Rich called the back-up pediatrician.

Now the good thing about us cathing her is that we have a clean urine sample for testing, which cuts out the middle man and saves time and potential screaming from Anna. We requested that Back-up Pedi call in a prescription of antibotics so that we could that right away. He wouldn't.

Here's where I become really annoyed. Anna is at risk for UTIs. She has already had one UTI since being taken off of her daily antibiotics six months ago. We need to avoid infections. The lab at the hospital can run a preliminary screening of the urine within an hour. The final culture results take another 24 hours. So why is it that after the urine sample was dropped off at the lab mid-afternoon, I had to wait until 11:00 the next morning to hear from Back-up Pedi?

Back-up Pedi informed me that the screening came back slightly abnormal but we still had to wait for the final culture results. Anna's regular pedi was scheduled to be back the next day (Sunday) and we would be dealing with him for those results. He finally agreed to call in a prescription. I wanted to get at least one dose in her and have it ready to go in case she did have an infection.

So it turns out that Anna was just sick. The culture came back negative. She had sounded congested in her nasal area but her nose hadn't been running. Allie started up with the same symptoms, only worse, Friday night.

I didn't like the fact that Anna was on daily antibiotics and was happy when her doctors decided to discontinue that game plan but we really live on the edge here looking for the first signs of infection.

We ended up with three slightly sick, overly clingy kids for the weekend, which I know is better than the alternative. I hate to complain but I need sleep. Sleeping sideways in a queen size bed with two three year olds doesn't really do it for me.

Allie was a mess on Sunday. She was clearly exhausted so when she went to the family room and fell asleep that afternoon, I hated to wake her.

I took this picture of Emily right after the picture of Allie.

I often hear parents or so called sleep experts say that kids fall asleep better and/or sleep better at night when they are not overtired. Sleep begets sleep. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah, not in our house. Our motto is sleep, forgot sleep.

I ran upstairs for three, maybe four minutes. I walked back into the kitchen and Rich says, "Anna's asleep." WHAT?

Can you guess what Em decided to do two minutes later?

We have a no nap policy in our house. The girls simply will not go to sleep at night if they nap during the day. However, because they were sick, I allowed them to nap. Never. Again. Oh, I should note that they slept for maybe half an hour. I actually went in and woke them up.

They were awake until 10:00 Sunday night. And it wasn't that I'm hyper and not tired so I'm going to run around and play instead of going to bed either. They clearly needed sleep but wouldn't stay in their beds without screaming for me. And don't think that this is due to being sick. It is an every night event.

More on sleep issues later. This post is getting too long.